Gardner Fellows 2024-2025

Sarah Goulart headshot Sarah Goulart

Sarah Goulart is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Berkeley School of Education, specializing in social research methods. As a first-generation student with a strong interest in the transfer student experience, Sarah's research focuses on the challenges in the transfer process. She examines the intersection of institutional policies and AI models aimed at facilitating cross-campus planning.

Drawing from her own experiences and a commitment to advocacy, Sarah is dedicated to fostering equitable educational systems. She believes that personalized advising and institutional support are crucial in enhancing the transfer experience for transfer students.

Sarah is actively engaged in research that utilizes mixed methods to explore the advising needs of transfer students, leveraging both qualitative insights and quantitative data to inform best practices. Through her work, she aspires to bridge the gap between research and practice, promoting strategies that enhance educational access and equity.

Erick Ramirez Manriquez

Erick Ramirez Manriquez is a fifth-year, first-generation Latinx Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at UC San Diego. As a former transfer student with a Master of Arts and a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from UC San Diego, Erick’s academic pursuits and pedagogy are deeply informed by his experiences and commitment to critical self-reflection and action. By merging his lived experiences with the quantitative, qualitative, and analytical skills cultivated through his professional and academic pursuits, his research connects macro-level theories (e.g., racialization) with micro-level interactions (e.g., identity construction) to explore how racialization influences students' thinking and decision-making. His goal is to build a career as a scholar-practitioner, researching and teaching about the effects of racialization while actively implementing institutional strategies to mitigate its harmful impacts.

As a testament to the advancement of racial justice, Erick has been the recipient of multiple accolades and nominations, including the Ford Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellowship (Honorable Mention-2022), Oceanids Memorial Fellowship (2021), UC Santa Cruz HSI Transformative Service Award (2019), UC San Diego Equal Opportunity-Affirmative Action & Diversity Award (2017), and UC President’s Award for Outstanding Student Leadership (Nomination-2017).

Jaime Ramirez-Mendoza

Jaime Ramirez-Mendoza (he/him/él) is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate at UC Davis, specializing in School Organization and Educational Policy. As a first-generation, low-income, bilingual Latino from rural California, Jaime’s personal education journey drives his research focus on centering racial equity to examine college affordability, access, and success for historically excluded populations, and bridging said research to actionable policy. In his dissertation, Jaime explores the racialized burdens students face when navigating financial aid processes, and the cultural capital they leverage to overcome these obstacles. Originally from Smith River, California, Jaime earned a master’s degree in Higher Education from Harvard and a bachelor’s degree in Chicanx Studies and Managerial Economics from UC Davis.

Gala M. Ledezma headshot Gala M. Ledezma

Gala M. Ledezma is a PhD student in the UC Irvine School of Education, specializing in Education Policy. She holds a master’s degree in Public Policy from the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy, and a master’s degree in Education from UC Irvine. Gala’s research interests center on higher education policy and program evaluation, focusing on Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) and community colleges. She specializes in quantitative methods, with an emphasis on causal inference techniques. Her dissertation features a large-scale longitudinal examination of HSIs, analyzing how these institutions evolve as they approach and achieve HSI status. This research aims to deepen our understanding of HSI trajectories and inform policies for both existing and emerging HSIs. Through her work, Gala hopes to contribute to policies that promote access and equity for historically underserved students.

Hoyun Kim

Hoyun Kim is a doctoral student in the Policy, Politics, and Leadership cluster at UC Berkeley's Berkeley School of Education. Her research focuses on public higher education policy and systems, their implications for equity, access, and agency for post-traditional students, and more specifically, the institution of the community college. As a scholar of higher education, she brings lenses from multiple disciplines including organizational sociology, economics, and public policy to inform her work. Her transnational experiences in different parts of East Asia motivate her questions on how higher education for the public is understood and imagined. Her recent work focuses on the development and implementation of policies and initiatives at community colleges to increase postsecondary attainment. Prior to her doctoral studies, she earned her bachelor's degree in Economics and master's degree in Education at UC Berkeley.